social media adoption in the business community

Ed Shull speaks about how businesses are adopting social media marketing and mentions something I find quite interesting, i.e. “the thing with big companies is that very few of them truly want to be innovators”. In this quote Shull uses the word want, as in it being a conscious choice, however as he continues to speak he leans more towards an incapability to think outside of the box, which I actually rather see as the reason few companies take steps towards innovation than not wanting it. The whole web 2.0 trend has taken the Internet by storm and has quickly become a natural part of Internet users’ lives, so it’s only logical that this be adopted by the business community. But of course as with everything new it’s hard finding entry points since it requires a lot of creativity and out of the box thinking. There has to be innovators. And I think it’s the fear of making fools of them selves or of wasting money that holds companies back from taking these innovative steps, which is the reason it always takes some time before new markets and channels are adopted, as with the whole concept of online and search engine marketing. As for “social media marketing”, I believe that the adoption time will be even longer, since it requires an entirely different line of thought. Companies have to let go of the traditional, reason being that with social media they will now be entering a roam that is closer to the users at heart, at a more personal level. I think web 2.0 users have a greater tendency to find any marketing attempts in this area of the Internet as more intrusive. I kind of see it as an advertising campaign being launched in an individuals living room. The impact of this will most probably not be very positive. No, social media marketing definitely requires some more finesse.